Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners
Chapter 23 - Revenue Collection
Chapter 24 - Management of Revenue Debt
Chapter 25 - Taxpayer Compliance
Chapter 26 - Corporation Tax Losses
Chapter 27 - Tax Audit Settlements

10:40 am

Ms Josephine Feehily:

The compliance rate in 2013 was 93%. We are still receiving returns in respect of 2014 at the rate of about 1,000 a day. Mind you, there was a big jump yesterday. When we came back after Christmas, in the first ten working days after Christmas, we were collecting about €1 million a day. We are now collecting about €600,000 or €700,000 a day from people who are making payments for this year. I guess what that tells us is that there is a clear desire to be compliant. We are delighted with this and the message we are trying to convey in that regard is that we are giving people an opportunity until the end of March to pay before we consider applying penalties or interest, but we do need those who want to pay - clearly, people are paying every day - to actually pay.